Friday, September 12

Senator McCain projects an image at odds with the reality of his votes on clean energy, as the 50 votes listed here show.

At the democratic convention last month, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer said Republican presidential nominee John McCain's congressional actions towards clean energy and environmental protection were inconsistent with his campaign promises of environmental stewardship . "John McCain voted 25 times against renewable and alternative energy. Against clean biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind energy."

After the speech, most news coverage relied on this AP FactCheck article disputing the general concept, while not refuting the vote number. But closer scrutiny of his voting reveals that he voted against sustainable legislation or said he would have done so, more than 50 times, as indicated by his votes listed below.

As a long time clean-energy legislation activist, I am familiar with most clean-energy votes in the Senate, and am familiar with McCain's votes going back to the Clinton administration. McCain's votes have been very consistently against solar, wind, geothermal, ocean, biotech and any other clean energy, and against any government support, other than for nuclear power.

McCain does believe climate change is real. He wants to invest $4 trillion in nuclear power and supports cap-and-trade only if it has enough nuclear funding. No other Senator supports spending this much for one energy source. The Republican ticket has a record of being friendlier towards continuing oil and coal subsidies and is opposed to a cap-and-trade system, as it means taking money from oil and coal to fund it. The Democrats support clean energy subsidies and funding them by taxing carbon sources, such as oil and coal, to reduce carbon emissions.

McCain-Lieberman 2005, vote number 33, a significant piece of legislation that would have established the first caps on greenhouse gas emissions, failed in part because of the strong support for nuclear. Inhofe supports nuclear power, but even he voted against this much funding.

In this list of votes, as a reference point, I include the votes of Senators Boxer and Inhofe for each example. Boxer is the most environmentally "correct" in the Senate and Inhofe's stance that "global warming is a giant hoax" holds up the other end of the voting continuum.

I noted party sponsorship of bills (D) or (R) to assess his bipartisanship. Two of the most common misconceptions about McCain's stance on clean energy are that he supports clean energy, and that he crosses the aisle. While it is indeed accurate that McCain does believe climate change is real, thus allying him with the Democrats, his voting record shows that he does not support clean energy to solve it, but relies on nuclear power alone. Surprisingly, he actually crosses the aisle less than even Inhofe.